Blog Post 2 – A not so sneaky Severus

Memory can be both a blessing and a menace.  The ability to retain, recall and recognize past experiences is extremely powerful in the sense that it can define who we are and act as reason for our actions.  In the Harry Potter series, we see that memory is essential in not only just defining characters through personality, but understanding why they are who they are after learning their personal history.  Towards the end of Order of the Phoenix, we begin to see that there is more to Severus Snape than meets the eye.

The Potions teacher at Hogwarts is known by many of the students as cold, short, and bitter.  With the exception of the Slytherin students, for whom Snape is Head of House, we learn that Snape treats his students horribly, and this is particularly evident with Harry Potter himself.  Once introduced, the reader immediately identifies Snape as a major antagonist.  Between suspicions of theft and Harry’s attempted murder in Sorcerer’s Stone, his attempt to apprehend Sirius Black in Prisoner of Azkaban, the discovery of his Death Eater past in Goblet of Fire, and his constant loathing and mistreatment of Harry, it is easy to dislike a character portrayed as unpleasant as Snape.  Yet through all this bad, there are points where Snape appears good.

The first we see of Snape’s good side is at the end of Sorcerer’s Stone, when Quirell reveals to Harry that Snape was not trying to murder Harry during the quidditch match, but save him.  Confused, Harry does not understand why Snape, who loathed him, would want to save him.  Harry decides to dismiss this as he still believes Snape to be sneaky.  However, we do learn that Snape’s hatred towards Harry stems from his father, James.  This becomes the most apparent during Order of the Phoenix when Harry goes into Snape’s pensive to view his worst memory.  Here, we watch a scene unfold involving Lily, James, Sirius and Snape during their fifth year at Hogwarts.  We see Sirius and James hexing Snape for fun, causing him embarrassment and humiliation.  We see Lily attempt to stop James and Sirius, but Snape ends up calling Lily an offensive name in the process.

Through this new development, we begin to see Snape as a real person and question his true allegiance.  As does Harry, we (almost regretfully) begin to feel empathy towards Snape, a person who has been loathed up until this point.  Characters that are like Snape are hard to love.  However, there is a sort of ambiguity where you can’t quite decide if there is good in a character that seems so horrible.  There is something sad about him – his loneliness, his coming from a poor, unhappy home and his constant humiliation and embarrassment from bullying, primarily from Harry’s father, during his years at Hogwarts.  While it is not right, it is understood that Snape is taking his revenge of James out on his son, Harry.  Snape appears to be a product of his environment.  We begin to hope that there is goodness in Snape, that we can trust him as Dumbledore does.  After all, if Dumbledore believes that Snape is beyond his old ways as a Death Eater, there must be hope that Snape cannot be only bad.